Ayotte to Dempsey: Pentagon Must Address POW/MIA Failures

Press Release

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, about what action the Pentagon is taking to address troubling problems identified within the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). A report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said an ineffective management structure and lack of leadership is undermining JPAC's efforts to locate and bring home the remains of American service members from past conflicts.

The report came on the heels of an Associated Press story detailing an internal DoD report that found JPAC's effort is "so inept, mismanaged and wasteful that it risks descending from "dysfunction to total failure.'"

"With more than 83,000 of our country's heroes remaining missing or unaccounted for from past conflicts, including 49 from New Hampshire for Vietnam and Korea, I believe we have a moral obligation to those we have left behind," said Senator Ayotte. "So I would like to ask you, General Dempsey, what are we going to do about this and how are we going to make sure that we fulfill our responsibility to those who have served our country and have been left behind?"

In response, General Dempsey said the Secretary of Defense "wants to get to the bottom of it." He continued, "[I]t's so discouraging and it's moving rapidly toward disgraceful. So I assure you we will get at it. Now we got a new [JPAC] commander out there and I can also tell you that he is seized with this as well."

"I've written the Chairman and I hope that we could have...a hearing on this because I believe it's that important to get to the bottom of some of the issues that have been raised in the GAO report and the internal report," said Ayotte, referring to a letter she sent yesterday to Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) requesting a full committee hearing into the matter.

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